Academic activities in Beijing
Here, I would like to talk about what I have done to train my ability as a scholar.
In Tsinghua, “study” means just to work all day long in classrooms, keep on doing exercise in order to be familiar with any possible questions, cram for exams and finally aim for high scores. Study ends as soon as the monitoring teacher says, “Put down all your pens”. A very common term called “The Bull Man”, or a strong guy in its original meaning, is used to describe the students who can get extremely high scores in most courses, a sufficient and necessary condition for the “honor”. Of course, when we get to year 4, a new criterion is to obtain many offers from many graduate schools which rank high in the world. It seems to me that the students here can rarely think of any other methods for learning, except choosing a class and preparing for exams. However, both “methods” are not necessary for a student to master the knowledge, particularly when the teaching quality is poor and the exam format is stupid. I am interested in neuroscience, but getting “Excellent” in the course is not the end of my story. Most of my knowledge comes from reading books (even the exam questions are not extracted from them), browsing many papers online, communicating with lab members, taking part in symposiums and talking with scholars, and more. If you are interested in something, just go ahead and do whatever you can to show your enthusiasm. Believe me. By doing that, you may not get an immediate reward like a score of 100 or offers from Harvard and MIT, but in long term, you will find that you are really different from others.
When I was a freshman, I spend most of my time in exams because of many unexpected difficulties in study. Very soon, I realized that my original purpose of choosing to study in Tsinghua was not merely to overcome difficulties, nor to show that I was a Bull Man, but to fulfill my dream as a scientist who can enhance human’s understanding on the many marvelous mysteries in nature. While I had to spend more effort than mainland students to keep up my GPA, I still squeezed out some time to join some activities which may be helpful to improve my research abilities.
Teaching Assistant of Biochemistry course
Many TAs in my department are not TAs. They just ctrl-C and ctrl-V some questions from previous scripts and do some simple markings. I have even encountered TA who could not differentiate prokaryotes and eukaryotes. A good TA should help the professor to increase students’ interest and understanding on the subject, not just responsible for robotic tasks. I am always unsatisfactory with the TAs when I was Year 1 and 2. My lover asked me to do something instead of keeping on complaining. That was how I decided to apply for a TA.
The rule of the department states that undergraduate cannot be a TA except for lab courses. Well, good students and good professors should not be restricted by rules. So let me be the one who first break the rule.
One of my accomplishments which should be the most successful is to encourage students to ask and discuss. A weakness of Chinese students is their reluctance to open their mouths. Biology professors are generally left alone during breaks. Online forum is left empty. Therefore, I tried to raise some interesting topics in the forum to provide more opportunities for students to give their opinions. I opened a “dormitory Q&A session” also, making use the advantage in Tsinghua that students in the same department are living in the same building. I wrote an essay to encourage them to search for their own interest and take action for it. Combined with the teaching enthusiasm of Professor Liu, the situation was improved. In the left picture, you can see that the professor is surrounded by so many students that one has to tip his toes to listen to the discussion. I have never seen such a great crowd in Tsinghua’s class. The right picture shows the forum which is full of discussion postings.
Beijing Symposium on Aging and Neurodegeneration 2008
This is one of the symposiums I took part, in Oct 2008, as I have been involved in neurodegenerative diseases in lab. A very funny incident occurred. Usually participants have to pay for around a thousand dollars (rmb) for the entry fee. However, most labs of universities in China cannot afford to pay for the undergraduates due to limiting funding. As I am depending on my scholarship only for daily lives, I want to save as much as I can. I wrote an email to the committees to express my enthusiasm in neuroscience, which may sound rather silly to some classmates. I was rather confident that I would get assistance, because there are considerable poor students in China, and rarely an undergraduate is so interested in taken part in a symposium here. Finally I was allowed to take part free of charge, thanks a lot to the help of Qiaoqiao Shi.
It seemed the students in that university were not that proactive. I could just find a seat easily in the front row and talk freely with the professors about research. That’s really a great experience. In Tsinghua, it is common that speakers from top rank schools are surrounded by many senior students who keep on asking for offers. I still remember that how a professor tried to “escape” after he was surrounded. So it is sometimes not easy for me to talk with the speakers freely in Tsinghua.
I also took part in writing a comment on this symposium with other professors and was posted in the Alzheimer’s Disease Forum. It was not a great accomplishment, but it was encouraging to a student who would like to be a great scientist in the future.
A graduate-level course on Advanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging
I was the only biology undergraduate in this course opened by the Department of Physical Engineering, because MRI is a powerful technique in neuroscience. In Tsinghua, small classes are rare, and good foreign professors are also rare. So I had to grab hold of the opportunity. Many undergraduates worry for things like exam score, amount of assignment, requirement in math and difficulty of a graduate-level course when they decide to take such courses. I had not thought about them at all. My aim was MRI.
Some students are interested in how I could get a reference from this strong professor. Well, there are no tricks or short paths. Sincerity and enthusiasm are the clues. This is an intensive course, in which lectures took place from Monday to Friday in the afternoon. In these two weeks, my lover and I borrowed books and read extra articles, totally devoted to the learning of MRI. I sat in the front and tried to discuss with the professor. As the only biology student in the class, I made use of my knowledge in biology to explain the principle of an engineering problem. Also, I hope to become friends with such a nice professor, not for any practical reasons like reference letter. I believed that a foreign professor who came to China must be interested in the life of university students here, and I sincerely shared my experiences and true thoughts in Tsinghua with him. Probably the professor could not really get to know deeply about Tsinghua if he just had dinner with those high officials.
Just imagine that you were the professor, and I am sure you would be very willing to help the student, who is so enthusiastic in learning and sincere in friendship. In fact, I took this course in the first semester of Year 3, still quite far away from the time of application to graduate schools.
Exchange of ideas with secondary school principals from Hong Kong
I focus mainly on study and research in the first three years. So from year 4 I would like to let more people know about the study life in Tsinghua by taking part in activities like this. As a helper, I could follow the principals to have a look on some private places which are generally not open to public. At night, the official gave us a treat on a very expensive buffet. It seems a grand treat for foreign VIPs has already become a Chinese tradition, probably originates from Chinese emphasis on reputation. However, a simple dinner may be better if we want to communicate sincerely with each other.
Biophysics course
We have a small class of only 5 students this semester! We take turns to give presentations and it’s just like I have attended many mini symposiums. I love small classes, but it is always difficult for Tsinghua to provide them because of large number of students. During the first week of the semester, I planned to cancel this course due to my own schedule. But when I heard that many students (around 60 out of 65) have canceled it because they are afraid of the exam, I immediately switched my choice — it was a game analysis! The very few students left are all really interested in learning, and the teacher is at a better position to satisfy the needs of the students.
Of course, when all students are hardworking and enthusiastic in preparing for their talks, exams become unnecessary.
The last PE class in my life
Tsinghua is a rare university which requires the students to take Physical Education every year. I take a bowling class this semester and it is really enjoyable. Although my score each round does not have a significant increase, I have tried different postures, different balls and different ways of targeting. I have found that whenever I tell myself “Strike!” in my heart, the probability of strike increases. These experiences will help me to further improve my skills even without a teacher, as I know how to adjust myself, physically and mentally, when the ball cannot hit the #1 bowling pin. Actually, it is also a good way to take the bowling shoot-adjust-target approach when we deal with daily problems. It would be very indecisive and inefficient if we just keep on targeting. Just go ahead. Without shooting, you cannot get the feedback necessary for adjustment.
Some photos of lab courses
1) Molecular biology experiments. You may find that shortage of resources and funding is a problem of basic science education. So Chinese students should treasure what they have. However, in lab courses, I am surprised. that it is very very common that some selfish students just dominate over some reagents and apparatus, or do not return after “borrowing” something from others. They just want to finish their experiments as quick and good as possible – this is good – but in regardless of the existence of other students.
2) Organic chemistry experiment, taken with a nice TA. This photo is nothing special. Just let you see the Chinese instructions written on the blackboard. It is really extremely hard to understand the instructions totally as I learnt everything in English when I was in secondary school. It is very easy for me to miss out some small but critical steps. No wonder Hong Kong students here generally have to spend more time on experiments but obtain poorer results. Confidence may also be affected.
3) Extracting creatine kinase from rabbits. I found that they are many terrible methods to kill the innocent animals when we do biology experiments. In Hong Kong, generally the animal is first anaesthetized with chloroform. Here, we directly use methods like “breaking the neck”, “pulling out the eyeball”, “cutting the head” and “injecting air into the vein”. Totally out of my imagination.
4) Microbiology experiment. We grew colonies in different mediums to map the plasmid after bacterial conjugation. To save time, my partner and I surrounded the fire, which sterilizes the air, with all the plates and inoculate the colonies with toothpicks in clockwise direction very efficiently. This operation may lead to contamination, but it is good enough for courses.
